Elia delivers tough message to leaders of struggling schools

Often referring to her own experience as a 45-year teacher and administrator, New York’s new education commissioner delivered a simultaneously supportive and tough message to district leaders and parents from some of the state’s worst schools on Wednesday: Fix the schools, or the state will step in and do it.

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State lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year allowing superintendents and then, in some cases, state-approved outside individuals or organizations to have broad power over chronically underperforming schools. The State Education Department last week released a list of the schools that would be impacted and this week convened their leaders in Albany for a conference.

“One of the things that we can’t do is ignore the situation,” Elia said during a speech at the conference Wednesday evening. “We can’t go any longer—and I won't go any longer—and ignore the situation in New York, where we have persistently struggling schools or struggling schools without making the kinds of necessary changes that are allowed under this legislation.”

Elia said she would be an advocate for schools that are trying to improve and will step in where they’re not.

“I am going to be intimately involved in saying, I believe schools and districts are legitimately working on making these necessary changes,” she said. “But in the converse, if I don’t see that, I will be intimately involved in your school districts. Because we can’t allow students to move forward without the supports they need for success.”

Although lawmakers and members of the State Board of Regents have harshly criticized Governor Andrew Cuomo’s receivership plan, Elia embraces it, arguing the law would allow for the changes necessary to drastically improve performance at the schools.

Under the law, underperforming schools have one or two years to improve before outside “receivers” chosen by local leaders but approved by the state will be given the power to overhaul the schools’ management, staffing and operations. In the meantime, the superintendent of the district where the schools are located will have some of the powers of the “receiver.”

Twenty schools that have been struggling for a decade or longer will have access this year to $75 million for their turnaround efforts. However, schools that have been struggling for three years or more are still at risk of receivership but do not get any extra money under the law.

During the speech, Elia explained the importance of working with other governmental agencies or nonprofits in communities to find additional funding and resources for a turnaround effort. At one of the struggling schools in the central Florida district where she was a superintendent for 10 years, the district worked with a city government to get an afterschool program in a park adjacent to the school. A nonprofit offered employment help for parents in the community. A philanthropist paid for new books and technological devices for students to take home.

During a question-and-answer session after the speech, one parent said all the schools in the program should get more money. Elia employed an argument often repeated by Cuomo: money isn’t the solution, she said.

“If you’re a persistently struggling school, this is not new to you,” she said. “Money is not the whole deal here, guys, and I have lived that, so I can tell you that it isn’t.”